Belgium

Although the NYSE was closed between July 30 and December 12 of 1914, stocks were quoted by brokers and traded off the exchange.  Global Financial Data has gone back and collected stock prices during the closure of the NYSE to recreate the Dow Jones Industrial Average while the NYSE was closed.  We collected the data for the 20 stocks in the new DJIA 20 Industrials and calculated the average of the bid and ask prices from August 24, 1914 to December 12, 1914.  This enabled us to discover that the 1914 bottom for stocks actually occurred on November 2, 1914 when the DJIA hit 49.07, over a month before the NYSE reopened.  Few people realize that stocks in the US had already bottomed out and were heading into a new bull market when the NYSE reopened on December 12, 1914. The DJIA did not revisit this level until the Great Depression in 1932. 

An overview of the major events next week within the context of the capital markets, which could be at inflection points.

• EU Works to Punish Russia as MH17 Bodies Leave Rebel Area (BBG)
• Bodies From Malaysia Airlines Flight Begin Long Trip to Netherlands (WSJ)
• Israel pounds Gaza as Kerry arrives (Reuters)
• U.S. judge dismisses Republican lawsuit over Obamacare subsidy for Congress (Reuters)
• Israel Soldier Missing Amid Assault on Hamas in Gaza (WSJ)
• Detroit Retirees Vote in Favor of Pension Cuts (WSJ)
• Russia Axes 1st Bond Sale in 3 Months as Ukraine Drives Up Yield  (BBG)
• Wall Street Cut From Guest List for Jackson Hole Fed Meeting (BBG)
• Credit Suisse to Exit Commodities, Posts Big Quarter Loss (BBG)
• Draghi Cedes Euro Control to Yellen on Fed Rate Wagers (BBG)

For a centrally-planned market that has long since lost the ability to discount the future, and certainly respond appropriately to geopolitical events, yesterday was a rough wake up call with a two punch stunner of not only the MH 17 crash pushing the Ukraine escalation into overdrive, but Israel's just as shocking land invasion of Gaza officially marking the start of a ground war, finally dragging global stocks out of their hypnotized slumber and pushing risk broadly lower across the globe, even if the now traditional USDJPY and AUDJPY ramp algos have woken up in the past few minutes and will be eager to pretend as if nothing ever happened.

As is now well-known, following the news broken first by Zero Hedge in May, Belgium, or rather "Belgium" (because clearly someone is using Belgian-based Euroclear as a front to cover their insatiable appetite for US paper) has emerged as the biggest buyer of US Treasurys in 2014, close to surpassing even the Federal Reserve as the biggest monetizer of the US deficit. But what about other countries in the world, such as for example France: a country whose economy virtually everyone admits is in shambles and yet whose bond yields have followed the rest of the world to slide to near record lows of 1.70% most recently. Here is the answer.

The revolution is already in motion.  It is a peaceful and intellectual revolution - not one of violence or force, and that is why it will succeed.

The saga of the French Mistral amphibious assault warship which was ordered by Russia years ago, and whose delivery - at least according to Putin - was the reason behind the US record $9 billion DOJ fine of French BNP (which the Russian president called "blackmail" by the US designed to intimidate France and prevent it from completing the transaction) just took a turn for the bizarre. In a note written in the Atlantic Council's website, Democrat representative for New York's 16th district, Eliot Engel, has proposed that instead of letting France conclude its deal with Russia, now that even the BNP "blackmail" has failed to dent Hollande's intention to see the delivery to its end, that NATO (read the US) should step up and "collectively purchase or lease the warships as a common naval asset."

The holiday shortened, and very busy, week includes the following highlights: [on Monday] US Chicago PMI; [on Tuesday] US ISM Manufacturing, Construction Spending, and Vehicle Sales, in addition to a host of PMI Manufacturing in various countries; [on Wednesday] US ADP Employment, Factory Orders; [on Thursday] US Non-farm Payrolls and Unemployment, MP Decisions by ECB and Riksbank, in addition to various Services and Composite PMIs; [on Friday] US holiday, Germany Factory Orders and Sweden IP.

It is the last day of not only the month but also the quarter, not to mention the halfway point of 2014, which means that window dressing by hedge funds will be rampant, as they scramble to catch up some of the ground lost to the S&P 500 so far in 2014. Most likely this means that once again the most shorted names will ramp in everyone's face and the short side of the hedgie book will soar, further pushing hedged P&L into the red, because remember: in a market in which all the risk is borne by the Fed there is no need to hedge.

Forget Maradonna's "Hand Of God", and Luis Suarez' "Jaws Of Doom"; Goldman Sachs just issued their latest set of updated predictions for the FIFA World Cup and unleashed a "kiss of death" on USA. The bank (whose win rate on predictions so far has been a lowly 30%) forecast the odds of USA making it to the 2nd Round (the knockout stage) is 81.6% (with Portugal a lowly 5.3% likely). Given the variance of results so far, we hope they are right; but their odds seem a little long (and they have Belgium beating USA in the next round).

Yesterday, Ha-Joon Chang exposed the shortest economics textbook ever. Today the Cambridge University Economics professor uncovers everything you didn't know about economics (in 13 simple points)...

With everyone expecting "Belgian" US Treasury holdings to surge by another inexplicable double-digit billion amount, and surpass $400 billion in what has been the most aggressive, and secretive, accumulation of TSYs by an unknown third-party using the Belgian jurisdiction as venue via Euroclear, the April holdings of the small European country posted their first drop since August. According to the TIC data released moments ago, total "Belgium" holdings - the third largest after China and Japan - declined by $15 billion in April, to a new grand total of $366 billion.

Yesterday, the IMF and World Bank issued warnings about rising interest rates, housing crashes and the global economy. The World Bank’s chief economist is inadvertantly offering important advice to investors and savers when he said that "now is the time to prepare for the next crisis ..."

Just like in April of last year, the simplest explanation why bond yields continue to defy conventional wisdom and decline is also the most accurate one. According to a revised calculation by JPM's Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, the reason why investors simply can't get enough of Treasurys is about as simple as its gets: even with the Fed tapering its QE, which is expected to end in October, there is still much more demand than supply, $460 billion more! (And this doesn't even include the ravenous appetite of "Belgium".) This compares to JPM's October 2013 forecast that there would be $200 billion more supply than demand: a swing of more than $600 billion! One can see why everyone was flatfooted.

Eurozone recessions, unemployment fiascos, toppling banks, crashing auto sales...  didn’t exist, sez the Stoxx 600. But then an ugly thing happened.